Governor Gordon Thiessen today talked about the steps that Canada should take to preserve the current economic expansion and improve performance over the long run, in particular by reaping some of the potential gains from the technological revolution that is now sweeping the world.

The 1990s was a difficult period for Canada and the Canadian economy. From the beginning of the decade, it was clear that we had to grapple with the problems that had been hampering our economic performance through most of the 1970s and 1980s.

When I appeared before you last April, there was still a high degree of uncertainty in the global economy related to the 1997-98 financial crisis in emerging markets and the associated fall in world commodity prices.